Senator Bill Cunningham spoke with Comcast Newsmakers' Ellee Pai Hong about his legislation to reform higher education administration pay and severance.

SPRINGFIELD—Senator Bill Cunningham joined colleagues in the Illinois Senate to pass legislation that would fully fund the MAP grant program for fiscal year 2016.

House Bill 4167 would appropriate $227 million for MAP grants which would fund the program for the current fiscal year. This comes at a time when many universities and community colleges fronted the students.

“The state needs to keep its promise to the neediest of students. We partially funded MAP but we all agreed that was not enough,” Cunningham said. “This is our step in saying we are going to keep our promise. I hope the governor shares the General Assembly’s priority in keeping our promises to our students.”

The legislation would allow the governor to ensure students who were promised MAP grants are allowed to keep them.

SPRINGFIELD— Senator Bill Cunningham joined many of his colleagues in supporting Senate Bill 2059 to send needed money to state universities and colleges.

The legislation would help schools like Chicago State University and Eastern Illinois University in ensuring they can continue to operate. It would also fund the first semester of MAP grants that many schools, including Saint Xavier University and Moraine Valley Community College, floated to students without any guarantee of the money coming through.

“Today, we took a vote to ensure that schools can continue to function and educate our students,” Cunningham said. “This is not enough, but it opens the door to continue to work in a bipartisan manner.”

The legislation now goes to the governor’s desk for his signature.

SPRINGFIELD—Senator Bill Cunningham passed legislation out of the Illinois Senate prioritizing agriculture education in the state.

Senate Bill 2975, subject to appropriation, would create a grant to fund up to 50 percent of the personnel costs for an agriculture education teacher. If a school district is creating a new agriculture education program they could receive a grant to fund 100 percent of personnel costs in their first two years and 80 percent in the third and fourth year.

“We need to prioritize agriculture in our schools. Our economy is driven by agriculture and yet so many students throughout the state have very little opportunity to learn about it,” Cunningham said. “This legislation would allow schools like the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences to easily maintain or create agriculture education programs.”

The legislation would also add agriculture education as an area of identified staff shortage which would make scholarship money available for those who want to go into agriculture education. Only 61 percent of agriculture jobs will be filled with qualified graduates in the coming years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We need to emphasize the careers agriculture offers, and one of those is teaching the next generation about those opportunities,” Cunningham said.

The legislation now moves to the House for further consideration.